Atheism in America | Hacker News Reader

Atheism in America

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I live in Boston and I'm a Christian and it's a little weird because most of the people I meet are not interested in things of faith at all. Some people I work with tried to guess my upbringing and guessed raised Catholic and now never goes to church. I told them that I was raised atheist and now you'll find me at church every Sunday. People were fairly surprised. I don't meet too many people who go to church around here so it's rare and I understand their reaction. They were all nice to me about it though.

All that said I think atheists run into the problem of not their behavior but rather the behavior of "that guy". You know him. Maybe you are him. It's "that guy who can't shut up and says insulting things about people who believe in anything spiritual at all" But "that guy" is a pain to be around. I worked with "that guy" once and hearing him compare my beliefs to the flying spaghetti monster was pretty ignorant and if I valued his opinion more than I do would have been insulting. He would repeat this week after week seemingly escalating his rhetoric to upset me. I have long since worked out how I feel about all this so I held my own just fine. My only point in mentioning him is that for another person this might have been pretty annoying and upsetting.

I've run into "that guy" on multiple occasions-enough to notice who he is and steer clear at parties and at work. The only advice I have for you is if you are that guy or find yourself being that guy just stop. You're giving all reasonable, just don't believe in God but don't want to hassle you non-believers a really bad name. Though so do Sam Harris and Dawkins so maybe you should avoid them too.

"That guy" happens on both sides of the issue. I work with many nice, normal, polite people who happen to be theists. They don't proselytize. We get along - issues of faith/belief/supernatural generally don't even come up. Every now and then I meet a "fire and brimstone" type, who makes a point of raising issues of belief with everyone they meet, all the time. That person is pretty rare, just like the proselytizing atheist is rare (but out there too). It's more about personality than belief, imo. As long as your beliefs don't get in my way on a personal level, that's fine.

Now... where I do have problems is when personal belief issues spill over in to larger civic life and are made in to public issues. That's what voting is for, and uninformed voters scare me, regardless of religious belief/non-belief. It's easier to see many larger sects of religious believers voting in lock-step on many topics than it is to see non-believers voting, and makes an easier target for discussion, especially around this time every 4 years in the US. :)

It comes down to lack of respect for other people's opinions. As "that guy" could have any pet subject, religion, technology, sports, politics you name it. It's fine to be passionate about your opinions but you need to respect other people's opinions.

And if the other fellow believes that there's a little man who perches on his shoulder, travels with him and tells him what to do? I knew someone who had this specific symptom - the diagnosis was "schizophrenia".

How does that differ from the fellow who believes that the Man in the Sky tells him what to do? I knew a fellow who heard the Voice - the diagnosis was "madness" (a diagnosis made decades ago when psychology was still in the Dark Ages).

And how does that differ from the fellow who believes that the Man in the Sky tells him what to do? But this time, no voice - the answer just "comes to me."

If someone believes foolishness about technology, sports or politics we're free to enlighten them. Like a fellow who believed that he could better his odds of winning the lottery by choosing numbers with a random-number generator. So why should we not criticize "religious thought"? Humans believe wrongly in every field. They should always be open to correction. There's nothing sacred about religion.

It is impossible to respect other peoples' opinions - there are too many of them, they conflict and they can't all be right. But you _can_ respect the other people. I believe that is what etiquette is for. Good manners can save the day.

That's basically what I'm referring to. There is clearly a difference between someone suffering from schizophrenia and a person who tries to hear from God. The person I'm referring to in my post asked me how I knew I wasn't a schizophrenic. I asked him if he thought I was and of course he did not. That's sort of where that ended.

I mean just consider the comparison you just made. How many schizophrenics have you heard of who can even keep their lives together without medication? It's a very serious condition. Compare their lives to that of the average churchgoer. It's not even debatable which you'd prefer to have.

You may have the good sense to keep those thoughts to yourself but don't be surprised if you share that no one really thinks highly of you for it.

The details if the opinions are not important for being able to respect that everyone takes different paths in life with differenet influences that lead to different opinions.

Yeah, I agree with your opinion.

   You're giving all reasonable, just don't believe in God 
   but don't want to hassle you non-believers a really bad name.

Most of them doesn't call themselves nonbelievers, but atheists (in fact they're more antitheists/antibelievers than atheists),

that's why I like to distance myself from them by calling myself a nonbeliever.

Christians run into problems because of that guy. You know, that guy who wants to execute gays and believes in Creationism.

Oh well, not really. Christians are privileged as hell in every respect.

Oh, you mean Richard Dawkins? I'm an atheist, and his hateful extremist brand of atheism certainly does not speak for me.

Really? I find Richard Dawkins to be one of the nicest and most polite people alive today.

A very interesting article, it makes me sad for america. I find the religious are much more often "that guy" than atheists are, i'm thinking proponents of Sharia Law, the pope, the guy at the train station yelling about the end of the world, the people who commit honour killings, homophobes, the list goes on. In the end what you believe as a religious person has no rational basis so you cannot reasonably expect people share your beliefs. Given that religous people believe something that is essentially insane(having no reasonable, rational or scientific basis) it is fair that you should be called out and challenged on those opinions. Having your beleiefs questioned is part of living in a free and open society and if your beliefs cannot stand up to even the most cursory of challenges then it is perhaps time to re-evaluate those beliefs.

You have the right to believe in crazy ghosts and gods and whatnot but don't expect me to respect you for it or make any concession or accomodation to those beliefs. Fortunately for me i live in a country where atheists make up around 25% of the population and it is on the rise, in a few generations we will be rid of the absurd and horrible scourge on society that is religion.

> "But Johnson is far from unique. As I found out when I travelled across the US last year, atheists live in isolation and secrecy all over the country."

That statement makes me sick. So horribly incorrect.

I'm tempted to guess that the author spends a lot of time around religious groups and churches, and thus, doesn't see many atheists on a daily basis.

I, on the other hand, spend almost no time around churches, and when I traveld across the USA 4 times in the past 3 years, I met a lot of atheists - and they definitely weren't in isolation.

You meeting some atheists that weren't isolated doesn't mean that isolated atheists don't exist.

The author isn't saying that all atheists are isolated, but rather that there are many atheists that are.

It's like me saying:

"I saw a lot of black cats when driving across the country."

and you replying:

"Nonsense, I drove across the country and saw plenty of white cats but no black ones, therefore there cannot be black cats all over the country."

You said you spend no time around churches. Isn't a church exactly the kind of place an "in the closet" atheist would feel most isolated, and have to maintain the most secrecy?

If you assume good faith that statement can't be incorrect. All the author claims is that there are atheists living in secrecy and isolation all over the country. He does not claim that all atheists do that.

It's not incorrect. Just because you and some people you met were open about it doesn't mean that others keep it secret for various reasons.

When I was in the Army and in Bosnia I would eat in the chow tent every night. I was a private and there was a sergeant that worked there that I would chat with almost every night. Keep in mind that I was a private and he was a sgt, so he had a lot of power over me. One night he asked if I was a "good christian boy", and I said "nope, I'm an atheist". He never spoke to me again and would give me dirty looks if we ever made eye contact.

I learned pretty quick to keep my atheism to myself in the military. I've also learned that the same is true in many parts of this country.

And there are no gay people in the closet, based on all the gay people we meet who are out.

> “The sad truth is that in many parts of the country, if you want to join forces with your neighbours and do something good, and you look around for an organisation that will help you do that, that’s the churches.” Matt Elder, for example, used to go on mission trips to help build houses for poor people in Mexico

This is a shame. There are other schemes, such as "shoe box gifts" which tend to be run by churches too.

It seems there's a gap in humanitarian working for rationalist, evidence based, atheist, projects that use best quality engineering and so on.

I think there is a sample bias there, many parts of the country has a large religious base so it's likely neighborhoods are filled with people of similar beliefs. There are plenty of humanitarian work not affiliated with religion, like Doctors without Borders, Charity Water and recently the K.I.N.D fund.

TED TALK: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0...

"What aspects of religion should atheists (respectfully) adopt? Alain de Botton suggests a "religion for atheists" -- call it Atheism 2.0 -- that incorporates religious forms and traditions to satisfy our human need for connection, ritual and transcendence."

Thanks for sharing this. His thoughts on treating travel as pilgrimage ring true for my best vacations. It convinced me to add his not-yet-out book, Religion for Atheists to my wish list.

If you live in a small town of 1000 and you are one of the handful of atheists, Christians, Muslims, blacks, or whatever, then of course everyone will give you the looks. Try going to a community of nudist and wearing only a g-string. Live where like minded people live, and save yourself the trouble.

The irony is that the US is one of the very few countries in the world that by constitution or legislation requires a separation of church and state.

In practice, at every level of its society, this could not be further from the truth.

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